Farce

Mr. Alam`s point is well taken. Rather than comment on his perspective on Gen. Musharraf, I write, instead, to comment on his perspective regarding what is indisputably a treasonable offense. Ultimately, Pakistan must have a peaceful, orderly, transition of power from civilian government to civilian government. Neither the army, nor the president, nor any other institution other than the people and the parliament should take it upon themselves to rid us of our own creations. In my mind, the real question is whether Nawaz Sharif, given enough rope, would have hanged himself. My bet is that the next election would have been sufficiently jiggered to ensure his continued presence. In that case, I would gladly have volunteered my services as the axe man should the General have removed Nawaz.

I shed not a single solitary tear for Nawaz Sharif, but rather for the complete inability of the ``electorate`` to have realized that the man is truly despicable to the core, and mentally incompetent. To have given that shameless git a second chance reflects poorly on the country. Our people should not be dancing in the streets, but instead should be sitting in a dimly lit room on a charpai, telling themselves over and over again, that if they ever get a chance, they will think before lining up behind a shallow, stupid, demented fool.

All bitterness aside, we must face facts. Gen. Musharraf is here, and he may be here to stay. Only time will tell whether, once again, the idiots were dancing in the streets for no good reason.

I agree with the skepticism with which you approach the topic. But having lived your life in the mentally blocked confines of the elite, you fail to realise, sir, that the change was necessitated by the conditions in the country. All other forms of farce have been tried, so why not another one. Its definately a big maybe, however, it is the only way to proceed. Pakistan did not have an option.

Maybe Musharraf is not what we idealise him to be, maybe the ``chosen few`s`` integrity is not an ounce more than their predecessors. But, remember, the Army has more to lose from this takeover than to lose. If Musharraf fails to deliver, there is no future for him nor his khaki fellows. He will have to deliver not from obligation or duty, but from necessity.

I hope you will better research your writings before drawing rash conclusions from the indecision of the lighting of a cigarette on the highest battle field in the world.

Hi!

since BAC u ve gone pretty smart!

i agree with u anyway, democracy needs time, we never gave it a time. Even when we revert to it after many years.

Bye the way general needs to clear up his act on kargil affair. Hes not a very popular in army after that. Speakin of truth we also need some answers from the general himself? why did we ve to loose some 300+ souls and over wat?

Will he answer dat and clear up his act? cause this ws the reason where the rift started?

If ones actions in public remain the same as in private (like smoking....) then I think, that shows that he is not hiding anything .............

Try to see the positive side of the mirror as well......

Nothing is all wrong. Even a clock that has stopped running is right twice a day.

Long live Pakistan .........

In response to Goga (Reply #: 28)

Dear Goga:

Your statement: ``My impression is that Karachites deeply detest the Pakistani army.``

Comment: Your impression is not wrong. But, the people of several other parts of Pakistan have historically opposed the institution of Army. Why? This what you need to figure out yourself, first.

Sincerely, Bilal Ahmad

Here is the second column by Haroon Siddiqui



Paranoia about Islam trips up West


RUSSIA and the five Central Asian, post-Soviet, Muslim republics are resorting to the same tactics Arab military dictators and monarchs have long used to stay in power and thwart democracy: Serve the strategic interests of the United States, and raise the bogey of Islamic fundamentalism to squelch domestic opposition and aspire to the role of regional bullies.

Russia, however, has taken the formula to new heights with its crimes against humanity in Chechnya. Its claim that it is fighting Islamic terrorists is demonstrably false.

Its relentless air and land war has killed about 4,000 civilians and made nearly 200,000 people homeless. But it has yet to hit any of the known Muslim militants, the 450 to 500 guerrillas operating in the mountains.

They are led by Shamil Basayev, a hero of Russia`s 1994-96 war on Chechnya that was meant to punish the republic for its secession from the Russian federation. But Moscow was humiliated and forced to sign a peace treaty, setting the republic on its way to eventual independence.

Basayev broke off with the elected Chechen government because it didn`t become Islamic enough. He built a militia of unemployed local youth and a few veterans of the Afghan war, said to be the followers of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile in Afghanistan. They dreamed of an Islamic state of greater Chechnya that would include neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia.

But the Dagestanis and the Ingush didn`t want that.

They are ethnic cousins of the Chechens, but they belong to the pacifist Sufi tradition of Islam. They don`t relate to militancy. Or to Wahabism, the theological minimalism that frowns on excessive ritualism, and is the dominant faith of Saudi Arabians, including bin Laden.

In 1997, Dagestan banned Wahabism and arrested its leaders. In August, it rebuffed, with Russian help, two cross-border raids by the Basayev militia.

The Ingush, while sympathetic to the Chechens, did not follow the secessionist path. They, like the Dagestanis, remained in the Russian federation.

The Chechens have a different history, one of 200 years of ferocious resistance to Russian imperialism. They have been lied to and cheated out of repeated promises of peace and autonomy by the czars, the Bolsheviks and now the Yeltsinites. Whenever they are attacked, they rally to their nationalist cause. Which is what is happening. The Russian invasion has brought the Basayev militia from the margins into the centre of the new resistance.

That`s why the Russian war makes no sense. Even to Ingush President Mohamedali Mahomedov: ``This is no way to fight terrorism.``

Yet the United States continues to indulge Yeltsin. Its entire post-Soviet policy has evolved around him, despite his czarist tendencies and corrupt practices - in return for the peaceful management of Russia`s vast nuclear arsenal. Worthy as that goal is, it has become a carte blanche for Russian adventurism, in which the Chechens have become the fodder. Islamic fundamentalism has little to do with what`s happening.

Europeans, especially the Germans and the Finns, have seen through this game and condemned Moscow. Yet our foreign affairs minister, Lloyd Axworthy, fell for the Russian propaganda about so-called Islamic terrorism and tried to justify this unjust war.

He has since pulled back in the face of Russian brutalities. But his reflexive reaction showed how even the well-informed can be tripped up by this anti-Islamic tool.

Similarly, the autocrats who run the five Central Asian republics - four of them ex-Communists - have been raising the ruse of Wahabism to stomp out internal opposition, and getting away with it.

According to a report of the European Union, the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan ``believe that the U.S. strategic and economic interests in the region, and the fear of Islamic fundamentalism, will work against pressing them too hard on human rights.``

Kazakhstan, the largest of the republics, has been given considerable domestic leeway - and about $200 million - for co-operating in dismantling its nuclear, biological and chemical arsenal.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev runs a dictatorship, as do the rulers of the other republics, to varying degrees. Political parties are banned. Leading opposition figures have been driven into exile. There is little accountability, much corruption and nepotism, no free press, and no free, fair elections.

Religious repression is rampant. For example, in Uzbekistan, the most populous at 23 million people, mosque loudspeakers are banned, men with beards and women with hijabs are harassed, arrested and labelled ``Wahabi extremists,`` even though many are not even familiar with the term.

The lesson is that the American paranoia about Islam has led the West into some very distorted policies, for which there will no doubt be a price to pay.

30

Hey Ahmed Alam,

get a smoke...inhale hard...and read your article yourself.

does it make any sense whatsoever to you?

what a waste of bandwidth

ali

My impression is that Karachites deeply detest the Pakistani army. I got this impression from nearly everyone of my roommates and acquaintances from Karachi. I`m not sure if it`s something historic or some covert elements are actively spreading misinformation. In any case, Musharraf`s rise to power might ameliorate the animosity the Mohagir community has for the army.

By the way, Imran Khan is second on their list of hate.

nashat:

Apologies for the vagueness. Meant Haroon dealt with the various forces indulging in Islam/Muslim bashing.

regards

t

Re #23: temperol

I am not sure where you see Islam-bashing in this article. I thought that its a well thought-out and nicely written article.

Here is another take on Islam bashing. This is from today`s Toronto Star.



The phantom Islamic revolution



EVERY FEW years, we are confronted with magazine covers and newspaper headlines screaming about the coming calamity on the Islamic crescent. The area of the arch seems rather flexible, perhaps to accommodate the latest crisis involving Muslims anywhere.

The current rash of warnings comes in the wake of the Russian war in Chechnya which is rationalized by Moscow as a mission to eradicate Islamic terrorists.

Thus the spectre of militant Muslim zealots holding sway not just in the Caucasus but right across Central Asia all the way to Xinjiang, the western-most province of China.

The fear-mongering flies in the face of the fact that the area may be the least fertile ground for Islamic fundamentalism. But that doesn`t seem to deter the prognosticators. Which must say something. About the public lack of familiarity with that remote but troubled part of the world. Or about the purveyors of prejudice.

In truth, the whole Turkic world is going through a painful transition in which Russian imperialists, regional autocrats, drug barons and ragtag Muslim warlords are fighting vicious turf wars. Islamic militancy is but one factor among many that have historical roots.

The area served as the legendary Silk Road between the two great powers of the 15th century, China and the Ottoman empire. It was still called Turkestan when it fell under the Czars who Russified its Mongol, Arab, Persian and Turkish inhabitants.

The people rebelled after the Bolshevik revolution. Stalin squashed their war of liberation in 1925, carved up the area into five republics and later moved millions of Central Asian, and Russian, Muslims around to suppress their identities even further.

The collapse of communism permitted a reassertion of the people`s pan-Islamic identity, just as it revived long-suppressed Christianity and Judaism across the former Soviet lands. The five republics became independent states, stans (lands) - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The restless Muslims within the Russian federation - the Tartars, Chechens, Ingush and the Dagestanis - toyed with greater autonomy.

Regional powers Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan tried for a toehold, with money for mosques and mass distributions of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, or with enticements of trade. So did the United States, Germany and Israel with aid and technical assistance.
But the eastern flank of the neighbourhood remained volatile. After winning their war of liberation against Soviet occupation, the Afghans had turned on each other. Their civil war spilled over into neighbouring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. With the Cold War over, the United States showed little interest in cleaning up the mess.

It should have.

Among the children of the war were the foreign mujahedeen, the CIA-trained mercenaries who had come from such places as Saudi Arabia and Yemen. They were said to be about 15,000. Most left after the war. Many didn`t, a mong them Osama bin Laden.

They went looking for new missions. Some found them in Central Asia and the Caucasus where they now control patches of land and command small militias.

Some are in Chechnya and neighbouring Dagestan. Others are settled in the Fergana Valley, that straddles Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, where they have imposed a strict conservative social code, including new strictures on women.

How many they are in all, no one seems to know. Perhaps hundreds. Maybe only a few dozen. But they talk big, about establishing Islamic states. And, with their beards and guns, they make for good copy, pictures and TV footage.

They do not have the support of any Muslim government - not Turkey, not Saudi Arabia, not even Iran. In fact, the latter is offering the Russians ``effective collaboration`` in crushing them.

And they have little sway over the vast swath of land that encompasses more than 4 million square kilometres and some 55 million people.

While the indigenous people are rediscovering their Islamic identity, not very many are practising Muslims. Fewer still are political Muslims. You can bemoan that, or take comfort in it, depending on your point of view. Fact is they are not the types to be easily influenced by ``the Afghans,`` let alone offering themselves as fodder for anybody`s jihad.

What keeps the militant Islamists going - besides the drug business and some private sponsors - are, a) Russian imperialism, now translating into crimes against humanity in Chechnya, and b) the ongoing oppression of the Central Asian republics run by ex-Communist autocrats.

That`s what the world needs to worry about far more than some phantom fundamentalist Islamic revolution.

More on Sunday.

-30-
Haroon Siddiqui is The Star`s editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears Sundays and Thursdays.

We would like to voice our concern on the problem of Kashmir. We have been studying the effects it has on Pakistan and India and have taken the time to research the causes, effects and what we can do to help settle this dispute. We want express our opinions on what we think would be right for everyone in this settlement:

1. If Pakistan was to become it’s own country, it would work out for everyone.

a. They would have their own government and control of all trade

b. A democracy is the type of government that is to be used

c. A currency would be made to be in comparison to that of India and Pakistan

d. People would not be killed for being in an area they do not belong

2. Kashmir would be shared with both countries

a. It would be split up evenly between regions of agreement

b. If one country does end up getting the land over another country, they will allow the people of the other nationality to stay in the same area that is rightfully theirs

c. Pakistani and Indians will share the land peacefully without an argument and a military will be formed to keep the peace

We have put much thought into our decisions and we feel this is what we could do best, to keep the peace between Pakistan and India. No one should have to worry about when they are going to be killed because they are living where someone doesn’t want them to live. If we can save on life in trying to get this proposal out then it was worth our time. Thank you and please feel free to respond with any comments or questions.

Kileen Oberle, Ashley Morse, Sarah Cook

Whitewater High School Students, Whitewater Wisconsin

A sad and touching poem. Very true the thoughts that you raise. If only choices were easy. However I think we luxuriously bathe in the sadness of fate at times. Sadness and regret over past decisions adds that melancholy feeling in life. True it is sad, but the ability to feel these emotions is in and off it self a wonderful thing. Thanks for the poem. It really hit a nerve.

Thank you Temporal, for drawing the intention of the Chowk Mob to the poor Chechniyans.

Russians received Western approval of license to kill the day it became a ``decmocracy.`` Western democracies have killed millions over the years Russia should get the same privilages.

Ahmad:

The following column from Eric Margolis is on a similar subject. It may indeed be more farcial! While we play the flutes, Russians are literally getting away with murder.

To inhale, or not to....

regards,

t


October 31, 1999
Kremlin resumes attacks on Chechens


By ERIC MARGOLIS
Contributing Foreign Editor

Hundreds of ``Islamic terrorists`` were killed in Chechnya this past week by ``precision-guided`` Russian artillery and bombing, the Kremlin proudly announced.
Russian spokesmen claimed that ``surgical strikes`` by long-range 240-mm Uragan and 300-mm Smerch unguided rockets, fired from 30 kms outside Grozny, delivering clouds of anti-personnel bomblets, were apparently able to pick off Chechen ``terrorists.`` The ensuing heaps of shredded bodies of women and children produced by the rocket barrages were actually Chechen ``terrorists`` in disguise, Moscow suggested.
Russian aircraft and heavy artillery pounded other ``nests of Islamic terrorists``: Chechen farm villages and residential parts of Grozny, which were being rebuilt after Russia virtually razed Chechnya in 1994-1996, killing 100,000 civilians.
As Russia intensified its savagery against tiny Chechnya, Madeleine Albright and Canada`s Lloyd Axworthy, who had previously backed Russia`s so-called campaign against ``terrorism`` in the Caucasus, were left looking like useful fools.
Even more so when Moscow news sources revealed that undercover Russian security agents had been caught red-handed planting explosives in an apartment building. A wave of explosions in apartment buildings in Moscow and southern Russia that killed 300 people, blamed by the Russian government on ``Islamic terrorists,`` was the justification cited by Moscow for its third invasion of the defiant Chechen Republic.
It appears clear the explosions were a classic Russian ``provocation`` designed to justify a new war against the 1.5 million Chechens, a nation that has battled Russian colonial rule for 250 years. Hardliners in Moscow, led by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB man, cooked up this war to help win upcoming December elections and keep the Yeltsin faction in power. Predictably, Russians, many of whom despise Muslims and especially Chechens, rallied behind the government and, just as important, lost interest in the enormous series of money-laundering and theft scandals that have rocked the cosmically corrupt Yeltsin regime. Moscow`s red herring of an alleged Islamic terrorist threat, amplified by its KGB-controlled news agencies, also neatly silenced calls by the U.S. Congress to cut off billions in aid to the Yeltsin government.
Russian invasion forces in Chechnya have adopted a cautious strategy. Unlike 1994, when Russian mechanized troops and armour rushed headlong into Grozny and were slaughtered in ferocious close quarters combat, this time the Russians are using their enormous air and ground firepower to besiege the battered capital and numerous Chechen villages and pound them into rubble. More than 180,000 Chechen refugees have fled to neighbouring Ingushetia, but now Russia, breaking all norms of international law and human decency, has closed Chechnya`s borders, blocking escape for any more civilian refugees and forcing them to return to the war zones.
Russia`s ferocity and massive violations of human rights in Chechnya come against a background of growing instability in the ethnically and tribally complex Caucasus, which is rightly called ``Russia`s Mideast.`` Last week, assassins murdered Armenia`s prime minister and shot up parliament. Armenia is on the verge of economic collapse after its long, stalemated war against Azerbaijan over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh.
Georgia`s leader, Eduard Shevardnadze, has survived two recent assassination attempts, which he blamed on Russian agents. His unstable nation is being fought over by tribal gangs and continues to battle separatists in Abkhazia. Oil-rich Azerbaijan`s ailing leader, Gaider Aliev, is losing his grip on power. An anti-Russian uprising in Dagestan, aided by a handful of Chechen fighters, which Moscow`s disinformers convinced the western media was the work of ``Islamic terrorists,`` was recently suppressed by massive Russian military intervention.

Stirring the pot
Russian troops and agents based in the Caucasus are stirring the pot, preparing the way for Russia to reassert its domination of this strategic region which it lost when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia has secretly armed Armenia in its struggle against Azerbaijan, while aiding Muslim rebels in Abkhazia in order to pressure Georgia into rejoining the Russian Federation. Once the Chechens are eradicated, Russia will turn its attention on Azerbaijan and attempt to put its own men in power to succeed the ailing leader, Aliev.
The Chechens, however, may not co-operate with Moscow`s final solution. Though lightly armed and almost totally isolated from outside support and communications, they are probably the world`s most valiant fighters. The Russian Army may find itself bogged down in a long, debilitating guerrilla war in the mountainous south of Chechnya.
But for now, the Kremlin believes it can still cash in on western aid by raising alarms about menacing Muslims. The notion that 1.5 million Chechens threaten 146 million Russians is cruel nonsense only gullible, uninformed westerners believe.
What should the west do? Cut aid to Russia, which is using our money to complete Stalin`s 1940`s genocide of the Chechen people. Cease helping Russia restore its rule over the Caucasus, whose people overwhelmingly want independence and reject return to Russian rule. Stop helping Russia reassemble the old Soviet Empire.

The discussion on Huntington`s book is a lot more interesting than the article.

Huntington`s clash of civilizations thesis is based entirely on false ideas. Civilizations have never been unitary or monolithic. They are divided, and conflictual. Both of the World Wars of this century started within the Western states of Europe. Previous wars in Europe (30 years war, Napoleonic wars, etc.) and Asia were also intra civilisation.

The real danger with this seriously flawed book is that it taken seriously by right wing think tanks and influences western policy making. Books like these provide justification for actions that include:

- direct aggression against the perceived enemy since he is labelled as less than human - e.g. IndoChina - where millions were butchered because they were considered a threat to western civilisation

- support (both overt and covert) for western clients as they obliterate all opposition by labelling them communist (Chile, Indonesia `65) or fundamentalists (Algeria, Chechnya)

- maintenance and development of weapons of mass destruction for the next great struggle.

The creation of imaginary enemies and demonisation/ exaggeration of smaller ones is critical to the maintenance of current power structures. Since most of the developing world has been and will continue to be targets of this aggression, I find Huntington`s ideas extremely worrisome.